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Aita

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Short description: Etruscan underworld deity


Tomba Golini, Orvieto

Aita (Template:Lang-ett), also spelled Eita (Template:Lang-ett), is an epithet of the Etruscan chthonic fire god Śuri[1][2][3][4] as god of the underworld, roughly equivalent to the Greek god Hades (Template:Lang-grc-ion).[5]

Images

Aita is a relatively late addition to the Etruscan pantheon, appearing in iconography and in Etruscan text beginning in the 4th century BC, and is heavily influenced by his Greek counterpart, Hades.[6][7] Aita is pictured in only a few instances in Etruscan tomb painting, such as in the Golini Tomb from Orvieto and the tomb of Orcus II from Tarquinia.[8] In these tomb paintings, he is shown with his consort Persipnei (Template:Lang-ett), also spelled Phersipnai (Template:Lang-ett), the Etruscan equivalent to the Greek Persephone.[9]

Although Aita is very rarely depicted, he may appear enthroned and sometimes wears a wolf cap, borrowing a key attribute from the earlier Etruscan underworld wolf-deity, named Calu.[10] Other examples of Aita in Etruscan art depict his abduction of Persipnei. Aside from tomb painting, Aita may be identified in a few examples in other media, including on a 4th-century painted vase from Vulci, two 2nd century alabaster ash urns from Volterra, and a Red Figure 4th–3rd century Oinochoe.[11]

References

  1. ↑ Servius 380b, 11.785.
  2. ↑ De Grummond 2004, p. 359.
  3. ↑ National Etruscan Museum.
  4. ↑ Maras 2010.
  5. ↑ De Grummond 2006, p. 231.
  6. ↑ Jannot 2005, pp. 153–154.
  7. ↑ Helmut Rix, 1991. Etruskische Texte. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.
  8. ↑ De Grummond 2006, pp. 229–231.
  9. ↑ Jannot 2005, pp. 66–67, 153–154.
  10. ↑ Elliott 1995, pp. 17–33.
  11. ↑ Krauskopf 1988, pp. 394–399.

Bibliography




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